Bradley Manning, the Army soldier accused of giving bombshell classified documents to WikiLeaks, has officially admitted to those leaks. And according to witnesses in his courtroom hearing, he places the blame squarely on himself--not on Assange or other WikiLeaks associates currently under investigation for their participation in the largest public breach of classified data in history.

In a hearing in a Fort Meade, Maryland courtroom Thursday, Manning pleaded guilty to ten of the 22 charges he faces in his court martial over allegations that he violated his secret clearance in giving information to WikiLeaks that regarded military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan--including the Apache helicopter video WikiLeaks titled "Collateral Murder"--as well as documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay prison. Those charges carry a maximum twenty year sentence. But Manning denied some of the most serious charges against him, including "aiding the enemy," a charge theoretically punishable by death, though prosecutors had previously stated that they would seek only life imprisonment for the 25 year old.

For Julian Assange and others involved in WikiLeaks' megaleaks, the most significant portion of Manning's more than hour-long statement to the court may have been another element of his mea culpa: Placing the full blame on himself rather than arguing that he was pressured by WikiLeaks or others to obtain or exfiltrate any data.

According to Fuller's account, Manning says he made contact with WikiLeaks only after reaching out to both the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Post's editor responded with disinterest, he said, and the Times' public editor, for whom he had left a voicemail, never called him back. Only later did he turn to WikiLeaks as an outlet.

Manning says he then began chatting with a member of WikiLeaks' organization over an anonymous channel, communicating with someone he nicknamed "Nathaniel," who he believed to be WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg. According to Fuller's report, Manning claimed in his statement that in those discussions Nathaniel never asked him to dig up more information, and that the leaks were proposed by Manning himself. "No one from the [WikiLeaks organization] pressured me," Fuller quotes Manning telling the court.

Those revelations may have important repercussions in any expected indictment of Julian Assange or others associated with WikiLeaks. After all, Assange may be most vulnerable to accusations not of publishing classified materials, but of actively conspiring with Manning to obtain it. In Manning's pre-trial hearings, prosecutors introduced evidence that Manning's correspondent "Nathaniel" had helped him to crack an encrypted password to gain access to another user's account, an allegation that could leave the WikiLeaker behind pseudonym vulnerable to charges of violating the computer fraud and abuse act or conspiracy charges.

Some, such as Tim Kelly of the Future of Freedom Foundation, have even speculated that the government has sought to use Manning as a witness against Assange, and that his more than 1000-day pre-trial confinement and earlier isolation in a Quantico cell were used to coerce him to serve that purpose.

Since the release of WikiLeaks' record-breaking releases, several WikiLeaks staffers have had their online information subpoenaed in a grand jury investigation based in Arlington, Virginia. Julian Assange, who is living in London's Ecuadorean embassy while seeking asylum in Ecuador, remains convinced that efforts to extradite him to Sweden to face questioning over sexual misconduct will end in further extradition to the U.S. to face charges related to his publications.

But Manning's testimony Thursday seems to imply that he has no intention of blaming his behavior on anyone else, or arguing that WikiLeakers somehow coerced or even asked him to retrieve any documents. The fact that Manning first approached other media outlets with his classified information also implies that WikiLeaks was not the initial proponent of his leaks, so much as Manning himself.

"He said 'I take full responsiblity'," says the Bradley Manning Support Network's Fuller, who I reached by phone during one of the court's recesses. "I would assume that will factor into any potential prosecution of Assange."

In fact, Manning defended his disclosures to WikiLeaks as morally necessary whistleblowing in the interests of the public. "I believe that if the general public ... had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate as to the role of the military and foreign policy in general," Manning said, according to a report from Reuters. "I felt I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience."

Moreover, Manning reportedly argued that he was careful to release "only... docs I was absolutely sure wouldn’t cause harm to the United States," according to Fuller's transcript of his statement.

It's unclear whether Manning's statement of his motives will help him in his own trial, given that prosecutors have already moved to have the judge in the case disregard motives and simply focus on Manning's actions. But as Manning argues that the motives leading to the leaks were his and no one else's, a certain Australian former hacker may be breathing a sigh of relief.